High levels of graduate debt in England may soon deter many poorer students from attending university, Jeremy Corbyn has warned.

In a speech to the British Chambers of Commerce, the Labour leader said that the country could soon face a ¡°shortage¡± of undergraduates because young people would be put off by graduate debts that will ¡°last a lifetime¡±.

Highlighting an Institute for Fiscal Studies report published on 5 July that said poorer graduates face overall debts of ?57,000 after leaving university, Mr Corbyn said that this debt burden ¡°risk[s] deterring working-class students, meaning talent wasted and potential untapped¡±.

¡°Not everybody can access the Bank of Mum and Dad to go to university,¡± Mr Corbyn told representatives of business leaders on 6 July.

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¡°Our plans for a high-skilled, high productivity economy rely on a large graduate workforce and that means no one should be discouraged from going to university because of debt."

Laying out plans to invest ?5.6 billion in a ¡°national education service¡± by increasing corporation tax to 26 per cent, Mr Corbyn said that it was unfair that graduates should be saddled with such high debts.

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¡°We cannot go on with people getting ?50,000 or ?60,000 in debt,¡± he said, adding that ¡°there will be a shortage of people going to university because they cannot countenance the idea of that much debt¡±.

In his address, Mr Corbyn highlighted Labour¡¯s manifesto promise to scrap tuition fees at a cost of ?11 billion a year, which is credited with the surge in Labour¡¯s support in June¡¯s general election. Labour, said Mr Corbyn, was ¡°not just an opposition but a government-in-waiting¡±.

The popularity of this promise has prompted one Cabinet minister, Damian Green, to suggest the need for a ¡°national debate¡± about tuition fees, saying that student debt was a ¡°huge issue¡± for the Conservative government. Jo Johnson, the universities minister,?has defended the student loans system as ¡°fair¡±, but has refused to be drawn on whether loan interest rates, which will rise to 6.1 per cent in September, will be reviewed.

Speaking to ³ÉÈËVRÊÓƵ, Mr Corbyn said that he believed a national debate about tuition fees would recognise that they ¡°act as a deterrent¡±.

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Asked why he felt the current student finance system was putting off students despite near-record full-time undergraduate enrolments in 2016-17, he said: ¡°Look at the number who are dropping out and their income levels.

¡°Look at the hardship that many families are going through, having to remortgage their homes to pay for their [children¡¯s] education ¨C somewhere along the line these debts start to stack up.¡±

Mr Corbyn¡¯s comments, however, were dismissed by Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat MP for Twickenham, who was in charge of higher education as business secretary from 2010 to 2015.

¡°What the leader of the opposition is proposing is incredibly popular, but it is foolish and dangerous,¡± Mr Cable told business leaders.?¡°The problem is how the hell else do you fund universities, which are expensive institutions to run,¡± he said, adding that the country is in a ¡°dangerous place about funding¡±.

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Scrapping university tuition fees was also unfair on the 60 per cent of young people who do not attend higher education, Mr Cable added.

¡°There is an enormous clamour to provide big, big subsidies to relieve a well-off part of the population who go to university and it will be at the expense of the 60 per cent who do not,¡± he said.

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jack.grove@timeshighereducation.com